The Beverley Whitfield Ocean Pool, best known as Shellharbour swimming pool, is a wonderful outdoor ocean pool, situated right by the beach at lovely Shellharbour. It’s a wonderful place to swim. Here are some photos of this delightful pool.
And here are my kids leaping in, full of joy.
In my memoir Going Under, I have a section involving a swim at Shellharbour swimming pool. It’s in the fourth chapter. Here is is in an extract for you.
April – Extract From Going Under
Shellharbour, New South Wales
April arrives and with it two weeks of school holidays and the chocolate feast that is Easter. We book a holiday house for a few days in Shellharbour, just south of Wollongong where Ben, our second son, lives. When term ends, we drive east towards the ocean.
At Shellharbour stately pelicans turn their heads to watch us as we walk along the path from the house to the beach, their old man throats quivering below their long pink beaks. As one, the group of these huge sea birds stretch out their black wings and rise up.
Alice and Tom and I are walking along past the harbour towards the open-air saltwater pool. Shellharbour once was a busy fishing town, its harbour walls a safe anchorage in the easterlies. Now it is a tourist destination and we pass families spread out on the small beach, hear the yells of children playing in the playground behind.
We see the pool ahead, built into the rock shelf by the beach and looking much as it did when built in 1894. Free to the public and washed by the waves, this is one of the many ocean pools that dot the long coast of New South Wales. This pool is 50 metres long, and painted blue inside with lane markings, with a shallow children’s splash pool under shade at one end. The kids run off for an ice cream but I head straight to the pool, step out of my clothes, pull on my cap and goggles and take a deep breath. It has been too long between sea swims and I am out of practice at this. Just get straight in, do not delay, do not think about it, just dive.
Arms fly up, legs push out and I stretch away, feel my body hang in the air for a brief moment then crash through the surface, that jolt of movement arrested, into clear cold blue water. The salty tang of ocean air flows deep into my lungs, then slow bubbles tickle my ear as I pull through the water, finding the rhythm, three pulls, one breath. The release of it, body horizontal, arms sweeping through the air, then pulling strong through the blue of the water. Moving forward, earth and gravity gone, liminal I lie between air and water, legs fluttering behind, released from their daily major efforts on the hard earth, working now only to balance the main effort of arms and shoulders.
Back in the sea, back in the sea. What the hell were we thinking when we moved four hours inland? Too, too far from salt water.
Much as I love actual ocean swimming, diving under the waves to get out the back into the swell, then swimming along parallel to the seashore, I only ever do that in a group of swimmers. A pod. Lots of people swim in the ocean alone but I am too chicken. I swim with groups of friends and with the largest swimming club in the world, the Bold and Beautiful at Manly.
In the ocean pools of the New South Wales coast I am washed by breaking waves, might see tiny fish darting, look at anemones and shells; I feel as if I am part of the ocean, the chill and the sting of it, the breathlessness and the wash and the movement, but I am also safe. Here at Shellharbour this bright blue sea pool is doing the job. I rest at one end, look around in awe then set off for my next lap.
Shellharbour Swimming Pool Map
Plan a visit to Shellharbour Swimming Pool aka Beverley Whitfield Ocean Pool
Beverley Whitfield Ocean Pool is located at 19 Hockey Esplanade, Shellharbour NSW 2529
Parking: there is street parking along Hockey Esplanade and a small car park at the end near the harbour.
The main pool is approximately 50 metres long, and the kids pool is much smaller, but is shaded. During summer there are life guards on duty for significant parts of the day, especially during school holidays. Kids will love the extensive playground which is close by on the foreshore.
For me, the bright blue paint in this concrete pool is what makes it stand out. It looks beautiful, even though it is made of concrete and much more manmade than many of my more wild ocean pool favourites.
You will find plenty of cafes, ice cream shops and other delights in the village of Shellharbour, within a short walk of the pool.
History of the Beverley Whitfield Ocean Pool
This site by the beach has had a swimming pool since 1895. The original pool had separate times for women and men to swim. During the early 1900s, the area was known as the “sanatorium of the south.”
The pool was renamed in 1994 to honor Beverley Whitfield, who was born in Shellharbour in 1954. She trained at this pool as a member of the Shellharbour Swimming Club. Whitfield won Olympic gold in breaststroke at the 1972 Munich Olympics and was known for her powerful kick technique. After retirement, she worked as a youth worker in the Shellharbour and Wollongong areas until she passed away in 1996 at age 42.
The pool is cleaned out every Tuesday and is closed when cleaning takes place. Check out this video from the Shellharbour City Council about the cleaning of the pool.
Find heaps more articles about great swimming pools here.
Shellharbour is a very pretty little spot, our family really enjoyed a quiet weekend away here and can highly recommend it.
Find lots more information on the Visit Shellharbour website here.
